Hello, my name is Don Hamrick. I am a political nobody with no enforceable rights in the eyes of the federal courts which, and under the strict interpration of the Rule of Law, that makes me slave to the U.S. Government. Any opposing arguments here?

Backgrounder: I am a U.S. merchant seaman who had to take small arms training (9mm Baretta, 12ga shotgun, & M-14 rifle) in 2002 as a pre-requesite for employment aboard a U.S. Government ammunition ship coming out of the shipyard in Nedwport News, VA (empty of munitions). I applied to the U.S. Coast Guard for a non-existent endorsement on my Mechant Mariner's Document (ID Card) to read "National Open Carry Handgun" under 42 U.S.C. 7306(a)(3) to recognize that small arms training as occupational training. The Coast Guard denied my application claiming that such an endorsement would have no benefit to marine safety or security. The "final agency action" (46 U.S.C. § 1.03-15(j)) denial gave me standing to sue under 46 C.F.R. § 1.01-30(a) Judicial Review.

In June of 2002 I filed my first Second Amendment lawsuit. It was dismissed with prejudice. The judge's Memorandum Opinion read like a Sarah Brady anti-gun campaign ad about a collective right of the state to arm a militia.

I have been pushing my Second Amendment case for "National Open Carry Handgun" for the last 6 years, since 2002.

Because my case runs counter to the NRA's Golden Goose of "National Reciprocity for Concealed Carry" they chose to ignore my case and let me walk into the den of lions known as the corrupt federal courts as an unrepresented civil plaintiff with no backing or support from anyone. As a result the federal courts have given me the bum's rush out the with "Dismissed with Prejudice."

Now in the course of human events Jessica Gonzales (now Lenahan) filed a human rights complaint against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (international tribunal with oversight authority for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights) contesting the U.S. Supreme Court's "no right to police protection" doctrine.

I learned about Jessica's case early in 2006. Sometime in October 2006 I up the ante by filing my own human rights complaint against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) (Petition No. P-112-06) over the denial of my Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial in defense of my Second Amendment right to life and in defense of my right to life against the common criminal in everyday life.

I gave notice to the IACHR that my case provides the counter-balance to Jessica Lenahan's case against "no right to police protection." My human rights complaint is still being investigated.

The Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial is covered in several international human rights treaties. And the Second Amendment is covered under the "right to life" clause of those human rights treaties. I intend to prove the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is a human right under international human rights treaties. The NRA is fully aware of my activities because I have sent emails advising them of my activities and continually requesting help from them. The never answer my emails or contact me in any way.

Just like the NRA trying to steal the show in the DC gun control case back at the U.S. District Court (Parker v. DC, I believe) so it is again the NRA is trying to steal the show from my own "human rights" approach to the Second Amendment. Stealing my "thunder" so to speak.

"Self-defense is a basic human right. It is the fundamental reason that countless tens of millions of Americans own firearms."

NRAILA.ORG beating their own chest like a guerilla:

"The protection of that bedrock human right--eviscerated by a tyrannical government--lies at the heart of the historic challenge to D.C.’s gun ban supported by a host of civil liberties groups including the NRA, the oldest such organization in the nation."

"It is clear that the D.C. gun ban law denies that most fundamental basic human right of self-defense by criminalizing possession of handguns by peaceable citizens, and criminalizing armed defense in the home with any legally possessed, operable and ready firearm."

I am prepaing a new Second Amendment lawsuit for the U.S. District Court in DC in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the Heller case. This time I am throwing every claim under the sun, including the kitchen sink. My lawsuit will be (1) a human rights complaint, (2) RICO Act complaint, (3) a Bivens complaint, and (4) a Federal Tort Claims Act complaint.

my lawsuit, still be prepared, is up to over 500 pages. It is a jumbled mess of excerpts of law review articles supporting my argument, human rights treaties, and a 6-year history of governmnt wrongdoing toward me as a pursue justice.

If anyone knows of a good attorney willing to take a Second Amendment as a human rights case pro bono please let me know.

Citing Robert J. Grey, Jr., Access to the Courts: Equal Justice for All, in Issues of Democracy: Access to the Courts - Equal Justice for All, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF SATE, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATON PROGRAMS, August 2004, 6-11:
(Available Online)

"A fundamental value in the American system of justice is that the stability of our society depends upon the ability of the people to readily obtain access to the courts, because the court
system is the mechanism recognized and accepted by all to peacefully resolve disputes. Denying access to the courts forces dispute resolution into other arenas and results in vigilantism and violence.
. . .

Equal Justice in Practice

When discussing the idea of access to the courts, mere access in the theoretical or legal sense is not enough; rather, it is the results that flow from the decisions made by the courts that give it meaning. For example, the value of "access" is evident when the courts decide that no one, especially those in positions of power, is above the law, or when access requires the right to counsel in cases where one's liberty is in jeopardy.

---------------

Vigilantism & Violence?

Citing Frederick Douglass. [1857] (1985). "THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES." Speech, Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857; collected in pamphlet by author. In THE FREDERICK DOUGLASS PAPERS. SERIES ONE: SPEECHES, DEBATES, AND INTERVIEWS. Volume 3: 1855-63. Edited by John W. Blassingame. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 204:

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."

Frederick Douglass, 1857

MY COMMENTARY

If the U.S. Department of State knows that a continuous denial of justice through continuous denials of the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial (i.e. no Second Amendment case at the U.S. Supreme Court from Miller in 1939 to Heller in 2007, that's 68 years of no Second Amendment jurisprudence) and a continuous denial of "access to the courts forces dispute resolution into other arenas and results in vigilantism and violence" then it begs the question is the U.S. Government becoming or has it already become a "belligerent" nation to its own people?

Now can that argument be sustained under the Law of Internal Armed Conflict even if we are at the infant stage of civil unrest? What do we make of the "vigilantism and violence" remark from the U.S. Department of State?

Dare I enter the world of conspiracy theorists to advance the suggestion that the U.S. is preparing for civil war? Oops! There's a movie plot for ya!

The merchant marine doesn't realize that every reader of this blog, except him, is breathing a sigh of relief that NRA isn't spending their money to support batshit-crazy pro-se litigatants who haven't yet won anything, instead of carefully planned cases. It does give me insight into what they have to ward off, and a sympathy for the employees who have to put up with this sort of thing.

"In June of 2002 I filed my first Second Amendment lawsuit. It was dismissed with prejudice."

"walk into the den of lions known as the corrupt federal courts"

"I am prepaing a new Second Amendment lawsuit for the U.S. District Court in DC in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the Heller case. This time I am throwing every claim under the sun, including the kitchen sink."

Do we have the right to travel intrastate and interstate with our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms without the threat of being subject to arrest for possession of your own lawfully registerd handgun out-of-state?

That is the core issue of my lawsuit.

Or is it because I trashed the NRA that spurned you to cry like a baby by throwing insults at me?

The two of you, and everyone else, need to learn how to argue with logic instead of emotional rhetoric. Ya'll need to read Andrew Jay McClurg's law review article "The Rhetoric of Gun Control" available at SAF.ORG.

So, you started in 2002. Whoopity do. I've been corresponding with David and Clayton Cramer about legal strategies and fighting the antigunners since the early '90's. All you're likely to do is create MORE BAD PRECEDENT THAT WE HAVE TO OVERTURN.

"Explain to me why I need the annointing approval and blessing from the NRA to proceed in defense of my rights?"

I'll grant you that the NRA sucks. Still, stop making stupid arguments. I wanted to go that route, take on the system, until I realized that, yes, I might set bad precedent that others would have to fight to clean up.

So now I have no right to speak on my own behalf as a victim of government wrongdoing?

Kiss my ass you ignorant excuse of a human being! I will pursue justice in every venue I can find, from the federal courts to international human rights tribunals like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with my human rights complaint, Petition No. P-1142-06 filed in 2006 which is still under investigation.

We are in a sad and deplorable State of the Union when an individual citizen cannot publicly speak of his own pursuit of equal justice under the law without getting insulted, humiliated, beaten up on blogs and told to shut up and go away.

I ask you where is freedom today? Do we really have "actual freedom" or the illusion of freedom?

Let me make an attempt at some constructive criticism. If you hope to get anywhere, you might want to look for ways of attracting supporters rather than creating people who automatically recoil upon seeing your name attached to a post. This thread of comments was quite clearly intended to be about a blog posting on the proposed change in rules to allow concealed carry in National Parks. If you'll look at what's actually here, you'll see one short (less than a dozen words) comment, followed immediately (and now extending to nearly a dozen screen pages on my browser) by "Hi, there! It's the Don Hamrick Show, starring me, Don Hamrick!" As if totally ruining the comment section for anyone who wanted to exchange thoughts on the actual topic weren't enough to alienate potential allies, you also indulged in the rather juvenile practice of putting large sections of your posts in capital letters and bold face type, making it look more the typical post advertising penis enlargement medications/devices or announcing that the recipient has just won the Irish Sweepstakes without the bother of ever having entered.

I'd suggest that before your next post you stop and ask yourself one simple question, not "did he fire five rounds or six?", but "Am I trying to gain real support to my cause, or am I just trying to vent my emotions, regardless of the cost to my public image and to the pro-Second Amendment efforts of others?"

Oh, not to get too far off topic here, but the original blog to which this thread was purportedly dedicated has been taken down. While it's possible some thoughtless person made some ill-advised posts that might have been construed as threatening or obscene, I'd suggest that it's much more likely that the original poster found himself totally over his head in thoughtful, rational refutations of his letter. I know that I'd like to consider my reply to have been of that sort.

And if by chance I win my "human rights complaint" against the United States at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and/or eventually win my pursuit of equal justice under the law over the Second Amendment and equal rights under the law what you "idiots" say then?